Officer Craig Sroka with the Coventry, Rhode Island police department often spends his spare time answering questions. While sitting in his cruiser, he usually finds a minute or two to peruse comments posted by his 300,000 followers. Friendly and informative, his clips earned him 6.5 million likes on TikTok. This one, regarding speed limit violations, has 28,000 likes and about 2,900 comments.

What is the mph you can go over the speed limit without getting pulled over?

A follower posed the question back in November. “I was told 5. Or does it vary state to state?” they asked.

Sroka begins by asserting, “It doesn’t vary state to state at all…it varies by the police officer.”

“You can get pulled over by going one mile over the speed limit,” he explains. “There’s just people going a lot faster, that’s all.”

The truth is, while an officer might notice someone going 10 mph over the limit on the freeway one day, they might not do anything. They might also decide to pull another motorist going 10 mph over on the same freeway the next day.

Sroka says that he allows between 10 and 20 mph over the posted limit. It all depends on the road he’s on and how fast everyone else is already going.

His answer comes with a huge caveat: “It’s totally the officer’s discretion.”

He reminds viewers that that’s just his personal practice. “I can’t answer that because every officer’s different, and in every state, the speed limit’s the speed limit.”

Always take note of the local speed limit and understand that if you exceed it, you might see authorities in your rearview telling you to pull over.